sanalayla | Remember Me

Your Type (Really???)

The morning started out pretty uneventfully. Clark’s plan didn’t really work, because I didn’t wake up in his bedroom all magically recovered. In fact, for the first few minutes, it took me a while to remember I wasn’t eighteen and crashing at his place. I kind of expected Mrs. Kent to be coming in and telling me to get up and eat breakfast before it got too cold. Then, I remembered, and I got up to take a quick shower (it had to be quick since Clark had used up all the hot water).

I was standing there, wearing nothing but a towel, and brushing my teeth when he came into the bathroom and joined me at the sink. I shifted to make room for him, and ended up bumping into the shelves that held towels and stuff. When I moved again, my leg hit a hamper. I glared at Clark, who seemed to be completely oblivious to my issues with the cramped space. He just calmly went back to brushing his own teeth.

“Ow!” I winced and stuck the brush in the side of my mouth. “Smallville, how the hell do we do this every morning?” We were already running half an hour late. With one bathroom, it was a wonder we ever made it out on time.

Clark rinsed out his mouth and then turned to me with a quizzical look. “What do you mean?”

“Share the bathroom.”

“Oh.” He smiled a bit and opened the cabinet to put away his toothbrush. When the door swung shut, he met my eyes in the mirror. “We usually just shower at the same time.”

I nearly swallowed my toothbrush. Quickly, I yanked it out and then spit out the foam into the sink, taking some time to rinse out my mouth. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel him laughing next to me. I straightened and turned to him. “That’s not funny.”

“What? You asked.” Now he wasn’t even bothering to hide his laughter. “What do you want me to do? Lie to you?”

“Yes,” I answered immediately. “Sometimes, there is nothing wrong with a well-placed lie.”

“But, yesterday, you called me a lying liar. Who lies,” Clark reminded me. “I wouldn’t want to live up to that reputation.”

I studied him for a moment. “You do realize I know what you’re doing, right?”

“You do?” Clark raised a brow. “What am I doing?”

“You think that you’re going to hang out with me, flash that charming smile, and I’m going to be dumb enough to fall for you all over again,” I replied, with a hint of annoyance. “But, it’s not going to work.”

“I see.” Clark nodded slowly. “Well, there go all my plans. Except….”

“What?”

“You just admitted you think I have a charming smile,” he said, and flashed the damn charming smile immediately thereafter. “So, maybe my plan is working.”

I couldn’t help but smile back. But it was one my fake, super-sweet, smiles. I walked closer to him and gazed up into his eyes. “Smallville, you don’t want to play this game with me. Trust me, I will eat you alive.”

“Hhmm...” Clark’s eyes strayed to my lips. “Is that a threat or a promise?” Before I could answer, he took a step back and cleared his throat. “Are you going to change? Or do you need some help?”

I glanced down and realized I was still only wearing a towel. Rolling my eyes a bit, I moved past him to get dressed, and the last thing I heard was his laughter.

***

The morning at the DP was fairly typical. Not much had changed at the newspaper. The buzz and hum of the bullpen was the same – a little soothing, actually. I had spent the morning trying to get a sense of where things stood with my current assignments, and I was happy to see that most of the articles I was working on didn’t require much effort. Some were even in rough draft form. With some relief, I finished cleaning one up and sent it off to Brady, glad that I’d secured my job for at least another day. Maybe this whole two year hole in my brain wouldn’t be impossible to work around.

“Do you want to go get some coffee?” Clark asked, suddenly, from his desk.

I glanced at the time on my monitor and saw that it was about ten-thirty. “Sure, I guess I could use a break.”

Clark came around our desks to help me into my raincoat, and while I did shoot him a dirty look, I didn’t say anything. Until he let his hands linger on my shoulders and then I glanced up at him and said sharply, “Personal space. Hello!”

He dropped his hands and offered me a sheepish smile. “Sorry.”

I rolled my eyes, because I knew he wasn’t sorry at all. Grumbling a bit under my breath, I followed him to the elevator and out to the coffee shop. It didn’t take long, since the place is right next door, and soon we were outside the shop, joining a very long line. I was resolutely ignoring him, trying to figure out how to get him to start acting more like the Clark Kent I was used to.

A woman’s voice broke into my thoughts. “Clark!”

Clark and I both turned at the same time and I saw a pretty, blonde woman come hurrying up to us. “Clark,” she said again, with a wide smile. “How nice to see you again.”

Clark re-gained the power of speech and answered, “Cat. How are you?”

I watched, with some amusement, as she placed her hand on his shoulder and gazed up at him. “I’m doing great. I wanted to thank you for your help with the segment on the fire. My producer loved it.” Apparently she realized there was more than one person in the universe, other than Clark, and she turned to me. “Oh, I’m sorry. Was I interrupting?” She glanced at him and then at me.

“No,” I assured her. “You weren’t.”

“Oh, sorry, Cat, this is Lois….” Clark said, indicating towards me. I guessed I didn’t know her, if he had to introduce her. “She’s my….” He paused and looked uncomfortable.

“Friend,” I finished for him. With a big smile, I shook her hand. “Lois Lane. I’m Clark’s very platonic friend.” I ignored the dirty look he shot my way at that. “And co-worker, of course,” I added, in case the blonde was wondering why we were hanging out.

Cat understood what I was saying and she immediately nodded. “Oh, I see!”

Then, I said, “You’re the host of Good Morning Metropolis.”

Clark turned to me, with some surprise, and asked, “Do you remember that?”

“No,” I answered truthfully. I pointed at the bus that had just gone by. “Cat’s face is on that bus.”

She turned and looked over her shoulder. And then laughed. “Yes, well, I am. But that’s just my day job. I’m also finishing up my PhD at Met. U.”

“Really?” I looked her over, appraisingly, for a second and then glanced at Clark. “In what?”

“Social justice,” Cat answered. “I defend my dissertation this summer. It’s called “What’s Fair is Fair”. I analyze the underlying values of three socio-political phenomena, based on a survey that was released a few years ago. ”

My eyes widened. “Wow. Interesting.” I turned to Clark, “You know, I think the line’s clearing up. Can you get our coffee?” With a grin directed at Cat, I added, “I want hear all about this socio-political phenomena.”

Clark cast me a suspicious look (and who could blame him), but he complied. By the time he got back with two coffee cups, Cat had already taken off.

Taking the cup he offered me, I informed him, “She wants to have your babies.”

Clark choked on the coffee he’d been drinking. “Lois!”

“What?” I shrugged and took a sip of my coffee, hiding my smile. “It’s pretty obvious, Clark. I think you should ask her out.”

Clark had gained control of himself and smoothed down his tie, probably checking to make sure he hadn’t spilled his coffee. “Cat? You think I should ask Cat out on a date?”

“Yeah,” I answered, with a teasing grin. “She’s totally your type.”

Clark’s brows rose and, then, he kind of nodded, like he was considering what I was saying. “Type? What’s my type, exactly?”

I turned to head back towards the DP and registered that he was following me. “You know, pretty, kind of over-extended with the extra-curriculars. Smart, likes hanging out in places with art made by dead guys.” I glanced at him. “Kind of nerdy.”

Clark let out a laugh.

“What’s so funny?” I asked him, my eyes narrowing.

“Well, since you’re the last woman I dated, I think you just called yourself a nerd,” he replied, sounding more than a little smug. He held the elevator door open for me, and I followed him in.

“That, clearly, doesn’t count, Smallville,” I told him.

“Why is that, Lois?”

“Because I must have been temporarily insane,” I told him, not exactly joking. I took another sip of my coffee and turned to face the doors, ready to jump out as soon as they opened.

Clark did that thing where he presses his lips together and kind of half-shrugs. I call it the ‘I’m just humoring Lois’ look. “Whatever you’ve got to tell yourself, Lois.”

“By the way….” Smiling slowly, I closed the gap between us and slid a piece of paper in his shirt pocket. “Here’s her address and phone number. You’re picking her up at eight on Saturday. I told her you were too shy to ask her out. So, I did it for you.” I cocked my head to the side and added, teasingly, “She thought that was adorable.”

Clark was no longer smiling. “Lois.”

I put my hand on his chest to stop him. Looking up at him, I said, “I told you, Smallville. You don’t want to play with me. I will win.” The elevator doors chose that moment to slide open, and I made a hasty exit. If it’s one thing the General’s taught me, it’s that you should quit while you’re ahead.

Rather than going back to my desk, I went to the supply closet, mainly to avoid Clark. I took a few minutes to finish my coffee and gather my thoughts. While I was at it, I decided to get some paper so it would be a reasonably plausible cover story for why I disappeared. I mean, it was one thing for me to need to take a break from Clark, it was another for him to know it. Never show weakness. Another Lane family motto.

It turned out that it didn’t matter, because when I got back to my desk, Clark wasn’t even there. And he was gone for about two hours, which was time I spent getting a lot of work done. (Even though I still couldn’t access the file labeled ‘Rao_Towers’.) By the time Clark finally made it back, he seemed to have forgotten about our last conversation, because he didn’t bring it up. That was fine by me.

We worked in companionable silence for another half an hour, when Clark got up to leave again, saying something about how he need to go pick up his watch from the repair shop. I watched him go, but didn’t say anything. The rest of the afternoon passed by the same way – every so often, Clark would jump up and go run an errand. One time, when he came back, he smelled like smoke.

My curiosity was getting the best of me, so I finally just asked him, “Clark, did you take up smoking or something?”

“What? No, why?” Clark asked, clearly amused by the question.

“Because you keep leaving to go outside and now,” I inhaled and made a face, “You smell like smoke.”

“No, I….” Clark paused and then said, sheepishly, “I just had a lot of errands to run. When I was coming back, there was a fire on 9th street, so the smell probably got on my clothes.”

With a shrug, I accepted his explanation. It made sense, after all. And then I kind of laughed and shook my head. What had I been thinking? Clark, a smoker? Like he could keep that kind of a secret. I reminded myself that, with Clark, what you see is what you get. I was turning my attention back to my work, when I caught something out of the corner of my eye. It was Oliver. He was standing near the elevator and talking to a red-head. A very pretty red-head. Not even realizing what I was doing, I shot to my feet and said, “I… um… I have an errand to run.”

Not bothering to wait for Clark’s response, I made a bee-line for my ex. “Oliver. What are you doing here?”

Oliver looked surprised to see me (odd, since he knew I worked here), but he managed a smile. “Hey, Legs. I thought you’d be home, resting.”

“Why would she be resting?” The red-head cast a sharp look at me. “Something wrong, Lois?”

Frowning slightly, I shook my head. Apparently, I was supposed to know who this person was.

Oliver seemed to sense my uncertainty, because he stepped in and said, “No, Tess, Lois is fine. She had told me she was coming down with a cold, so I thought she’d stay home today.”

With some relief, I nodded. It was Tess Mercer. The new head of the DP. I had a whole file of notes on her, so now I knew who I was dealing with. It didn’t take much for me to make the leap that we hated each other. Even if my files hadn’t given me a clue of what sort of person she was, the look she was giving me would have been enough to bring me up to speed.

“Well, Queen,” Tess drawled, looking me up and down. “As much as I’m enjoying this little impromptu meeting of the Oliver Queen ex-girlfriend club, I do actually have real work to do.” She gave him a look that was half flirtatious and half steel. “And, next time you want information on my books, all you have to do is ask. No need to send pretty boys in green leather to do the dirty work for you.” She stepped closer to him and added, “Unless you’re wearing the leather. Then, I might just make an exception.” Oliver didn’t respond, and she turned to me and gave me a chilly nod. “Lois.”

I watched her walk away. “You and her? Really?”

Oliver let out a sigh. “Mercy… we have a history. She wasn’t always like this.”

“No, I mean, she’s pretty.” Shrugging a bit, I kind of shook my head. “If you like the whole ‘I’m evil and want to take over the world’ vibe. I mean, it’s a certain look most girls can’t pull off.”

Oliver looked like he was trying not to laugh. “Are you jealous, Lois?”

“Please.” I rolled my eyes. He was my ex, after all. I have pride. “We broke up. It’s not my business what you do in your spare time.” I paused and added pointedly, “Or who you do, for that matter.”

“Well, I’m not doing Tess, if that’s what you’re asking,” Oliver said, with another grin. “She was a momentary… fling.”

“No need to explain, Ollie,” I said, again. But, then, I couldn’t help but add, “I just think you can do better.”

“You think I haven’t been trying?” Oliver glanced away and then back at me again. “I just don’t know… sometimes, I feel like maybe some people are just destined to be alone.”

I didn’t really know how to respond to that, because I actually thought he was right. There were probably were people in the world destined to be alone. I should know. My own father was one of them. But, of course, I couldn’t say that to him. I just said, in what I hoped was a reassuring voice, “I don’t know, Oliver. I think that you’ll find her. When the right girl comes along, I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

Clearly deciding a change of subject was in order, Oliver cleared his throat and grasped my shoulders. “Listen, Legs, I have to re-schedule for tonight.” In a lower volume, he added, “Some Arrow stuff came up.”

I nodded. “Of course.”

Clark chose that moment to join us. “Oliver.” He didn’t look pleased, but also didn’t look like he wanted to murder Ollie, so I saw that as a sign of improvement.

“Clark.” Oliver dropped his hands and took a step back from me.

An awkward silence followed. Before I could formulate a nice, witty quip to break it, Oliver said, “You know, I think I’ll take the stairs.” And he was gone.

That left me with Clark and he, silently, handed me my bag. Startled, I glanced down at my watch and realized it was time to go. We waited for the elevator to open and then stepped in at the same time.

After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, I couldn’t take it anymore and said the first thing that popped into my head. “So, Oliver and Tess Mercer, huh? Did you know about that?”

Clark let out a deep sigh and hit the elevator button. “No. I don’t make it a habit to pay attention to Oliver’s love life.” Then he looked me over coolly and added, “Although, I guess now I don’t have much of a choice.”

I flushed and looked away. “I’m just saying… I don’t really think she’s his type.” Even before the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to take them back. But, I do have that editing problem, and I’d learned that moments like these were kind of a given with me.

Clark snorted in derision. “Type? Oliver doesn’t have a type. If the woman has a pulse, he’s covered.”

Surprised by this, I looked up at him. I couldn’t help but let out a laugh. “Wow, Smallville. That was so….” I didn’t know how to describe it exactly, so I just finished, “…not a Clark thing to say.”

As the doors slid open and he stepped out, he glanced back at me. “Are you using my name as an adjective? Because, as someone who writes for a living, you should know better.”

At that point, I couldn’t hold it back. I burst out laughing and then followed him to the parking lot, shaking my head a bit.

***

After that moment, the tension eased between us and Clark and I went back to our normal comfort level. The ride home was uneventful. I mean, we argued. Don’t get me wrong. But it was the sorts of arguments I’m used to having with Smallville. Which radio station we were going listen to (me, classic rock; Clark, NPR), and how high the heat should be (since he’s a farm boy, Clark could pretty much live in an igloo and not freeze. Me? I was wearing a short skirt, with no hose. Do the math.).

By the time we got home, we’d moved on to debating about what we were going to eat for dinner. I was in favor of Chinese and he wanted a pizza, since he said we’d had Chinese three days in row that week. Given that I had no recollection of this, it really didn’t matter to me, and what really mattered was that I was craving Kung Pao Chicken.

Eventually, Clark caved (not surprising) and we ordered in. We’d just finished eating (although, I did note that Clark didn’t eat much) and I settled down at the kitchen table with my laptop to get some work done.

“What are you doing?” Clark asked, frowning at me, as he took in the papers spread out on the table and my computer.

“I’m taking a nap.” I rolled my eyes and turned my attention back to my screen. “What does it look like I’m doing, Smallville? I’m working.”

“It’s Friday night,” Clark informed me.

“Yes, I know, Captain Obvious. My memory loss has not taken away my ability to tell time.”

At that, he closed my laptop shut.

“Hey!” I protested. “What are you doing?”

“You don’t work on Friday night, Lois,” Clark told me. He frowned again. “Besides, you shouldn’t even be working this hard. You should be resting.”

I leaned back in the chair and crossed my arms. “In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re in Kansas. What is there to do on a Friday night?”

Clark pulled up a chair next to mine and sat down. “What would you do if it was two years ago? I mean, the you that you think you are.”

I gave that some thought. What had I been doing last Friday? At least, the last Friday I could remember. I remembered that I’d actually spent the last few Friday doing pretty much the same thing. Watching Lifetime movies and eating my weight in ice cream. That’s what I did after a break-up and this last one with Ollie had hit me pretty hard. I didn’t want to admit that to Clark, though, so I just shrugged. “You know, the usual.”

Clark nodded. “Okay, well, we’re going to do movie night.”

I blinked at him. “What?”

He grabbed my hand and tugged me to my feet. I wasn’t sure how he managed to do it, but one minute I was in the kitchen and, the next, he’d maneuvered me to the living room, settling me down on the couch. “Movie night. You like them. Actually, you came up with them.”

Bemused, I looked at him uncertainly. Was he for real? I shared movie nights with Smallville? “I don’t know, Clark. I’m not really up for a Disney Princess marathon right now.”

He rolled his eyes, because he recognized I was slamming his movie collection. “We’ll watch Star Wars.”

“Wow, your taste in movies has improved, Smallville,” I answered, teasingly. I looked up at him and then conceded. “All right, fine. Movie night it is.”

We settled in to watch the movie, and Clark was actually really thoughtful. He kept getting up to get me drinks and every snack food he could possibly get his hands on from the kitchen. There was even a running supply of hot popcorn, every time the bowl in my hands cooled down even a bit.

After awhile, though, it started to get annoying. Clark had turned into the most antsy guy I had ever met, seemingly incapable of just sitting still for a moment. Such a change from his loft brooding days, when I used to think I’d need a crowbar to get him to leave that damn futon.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. “Clark, for the love of God. Just sit down. I don’t need any more drinks or food.”

He looked a little guilty, but he did as I asked. Unfortunately, he chose to sit down right next to me.

I gave him a look. “Clark, there is a whole half of the sofa right there. Use it.”

“But you have the popcorn,” he answered, with a smile. To prove his point, he took a handful and popped a few into his mouth.

In response, I thrust the bowl into his hands. “You can have it.”

I expected him to argue, but he didn’t. He just took the bowl and shifted back until there was a foot of space between us. I turned my attention back to the movie and tried to dwell on the fact that I suddenly felt a lot colder than I had before.

An hour later, the rebels had temporarily defeated the Empire and I was ready to call it a night. I jumped to my feet and declared, “That was great. Let’s do it again sometime. I’m going to bed.”

I was only halfway to the stairs when Clark said, “Wait. We haven’t watched the other two, yet.”

Slowly, I turned to face him. “Huh?”

“Well, it’s not movie night if you only watch one-third of the trilogy,” Clark explained, walking closer to me. “At least that’s what you always tell me. That if we’re going to do it, we might as well do it right or not at all.”

I gave that some thought. It did sound a lot like something I would say. But the fact was that I was beat. This whole walking around with amnesia thing was really taking a toll on me. “But that’s six more hours,” I said, dubiously. “Do we really manage to get through all nine hours?”

There was a heightened awareness in Clark’s gaze as he looked me over. “No. Most of the time, we get distracted…” He paused and then added, deliberately, “And go to bed.”

I knew my eyes widened and I gulped, but I couldn’t help it. Then, in an effort to cover my reaction, I rolled my eyes. “Well, prepare to see the ending of the ‘Return of the Jedi’.” And, then, I looked him over. “And if you don’t stop making comments like that, I’ll throw the ‘Phantom Menace’ in there, too.” Punching him in the arm lightly, I moved past him to sit back down and held up the empty bowl. “Oh, while you’re up, how about a re-fill?”

With a laugh, he took the bowl. “Sure.”

***

My vow to Clark ended up going unfulfilled, because I woke up about three hours later on a seriously hard mattress. It took a while for me to realize that I wasn’t sleeping on a bed, and the hard surface was actually Clark. Or, rather, his chest. I was stretched out over him, while he slept on the couch. I must have passed out around the time the Ewoks showed up (and, really, who could blame me).

Slowly, I sat up, trying not to wake him. I moved my leg slightly, trying to slide off of his lap really slowly. Apparently, I was less stealthy than I thought, because he shifted; I froze in place, wondering how I kept managing to find myself in situations where I was straddling Clark Kent.

Clark opened his eyes half-way and kind of smiled at me. “Lois?”

“Go back to sleep, Smallville,” I whispered, patting him on the chest a bit. “I’m going upstairs.”

“Hhhmmm….” Clark was still half asleep and his lips curved up into a devastatingly sexy grin. “What’s your hurry?”

Before I could respond, he’d tangled his fingers into my hair and brought me down for a kiss. In an effort to break away, I started to fall off the sofa, and he anchored his arm around my waist to break my fall.

Amazingly enough, the change of our location and positions did nothing to stop him, and he just kept on going, trailing his mouth over my neck. “Lois,” he sighed against my skin, “I had the worst dream.”

I’m not going to lie, I had kind of been enjoying the sparks going through every nerve ending of my body, but I stiffened at his words. I pulled away and pushed him back. “Smallville. You’re still dreaming.” I didn’t say it in a mean way. Just used kind of a matter-of-fact tone.

Clark pulled back and his eyes opened. He looked at me for a moment and then raked his hand through his hair, with a sigh. But he stayed on the floor, leaning back against the sofa. “Sorry,” he said, finally. “I was still half asleep. I forgot, for a second….”

I gave him a sympathetic look. “Yeah, well, there seems to be a lot of that going on around here.”

Clark stared at me for a moment. “Lois, are you even trying?”

“What?” I had no clue what he was talking about.

“Are you even trying?” Clark repeated. He let out a frustrated breath. “To get your memories back?”

Taken aback by the question, I let out a laugh. “Clark. I don’t think my trying has anything to do with it. It’ll either come back or it won’t.”

“I think we need to go back to the doctor, Lois,” Clark suggested, looking a little troubled. “If Hamilton can’t help us, then Oliver does have some specialists lined up we can talk to,” Clark added, even though he didn’t look happy about having to resort to that option.

“I guess we could go see a bunch of doctors. But Hamilton was pretty clear there’s nothing to be done and it’ll just take time.” I bit my lip, thinking about whether or not to continue, but then decided it was best to be honest. “And he did say we should prepare ourselves for the memories never coming back.”

“That’s not an option,” Clark answered immediately. “They’ll come back. We just haven’t….” He stopped, looked away, and then cleared his throat. “We haven’t tried everything.”

I leaned back against the coffee table and studied him for a minute. “Okay. But, Clark?”

Clark gaze came back to me. “Yeah?”

“When are you going to give up?” I asked, gently. I didn’t just mean my memories. I meant all of it.

Clark seemed to understand what I was saying. He glanced down and then met my eyes. With a hint of a smile, he said, “Never.”

I stared at him. “Never?”

His smile widened. “Yes. Get used to it, Lane.” With that, he leaned over and kissed my forehead and then got up to go to sleep.

My eyes followed him until he disappeared from my view. I sat there, alone, for quite awhile, trying to figure out exactly how I was supposed to react to that.